Adding a layer of romance to math genius Shakuntala Devi's life, Jisshu Sengupta on playing husband to Vidya Balan in the film
Mohar Basu (MID-DAY; November 11, 2019)

Coming off films like Piku, Mardaani and more recently, Manikarnika - The Queen Of Jhansi, popular Bengali actor Jisshu Sengupta is now set to romance Vidya Balan in the upcoming Shakuntala Devi biopic, headlined by the latter. While inevitably taken by her acting prowess, Sengupta is all praise for Balan's ability to tickle the funny bone. "It's always fun to be around her. She's jovial and makes everyone laugh. We have shot some beautiful scenes together and I am looking forward to the audience to watch them."

Even though Anu Menon's directorial venture on the math wiz will explore her talent with numbers, Sengupta assures us that there's sufficient meat in Devi's love life as well. "Paritosh [Devi's husband and his character] and Shakuntala have beautiful chemistry, and our director has created magic. We did many reading sessions and rehearsed on set. Vidya gives he co-actors sufficient space, and we'd keep improvising our scenes until our director would say, 'Got it!'."

Moving base to Mumbai to focus on Bollywood films, Sengupta says he's looking forward to being part of mainstream cinema. "I just wrapped up Sadak 2, and am reading some scripts, apart from also meeting people [filmmakers]."